Monthly Archives: August 2016

If you go up the Hudson River a bit from my area in Rockland County, N.Y., say about 30 miles to Beacon, there remains a quiet that has largely left the busy suburbs, parts of which have become hybrid urban and have taken on that rhythm, loud at times. Just as coming closer to the sea brings whiffs of salt air, moving north here connects you to a fresh breeze, a more rural New York. And with fall approaching, however far off it seems in now oppressive heat and high humidity, a car ride to Beacon and thereabouts gives you hope that the door is opening on a more pleasant time and slower pace. The suburbs seem more civilized absent the high temperatures.
When I was a young fellow, Beacon and that part of the Hudson River Valley were a frequent draw. I seemed to be riding in my car in endless fashion, and sometimes a companion and I would have long conversations as we took the car ferry to Newburgh or stopped to travel the inclined railway to the top of Mt. Beacon.

Cursed with an elephant-like memory and a penchant for observing so many insignificant things, I recall most conversations with most people, to the point I can detail even clothing (a red and white gingham blouse and green culotte skirt, for example). An almost useless ability.
What was not without merit, though, was the breadth and depth of talk, even on seemingly meaningless subjects. Words are never lost between people — they go into the subconscious, and they are pulled out for reference, in other relationships, perhaps as fond memory, as regret, maybe as thanks that growth and experience and happiness followed beyond a certain time.
Yes, the quiet of Beacon, which exists but is a metaphor for anyone’s experience, anywhere, in whatever time.

The writer is a retired newspaperman who can be reached via ahgunther@hotmail.com

We’ve got this Irish lass in the food program, you see, and wouldn’t you know that the gal from down Dublin way just has to have her tea first thing before the servin’ of the breakfast.
It’s a right fine thing to do that, to have the lady’s tea, Barry’s from Ireland itself, ready for her because it’s a certainty Olive will give her best after the drinkin’.
When you’re Irish, and I’ve a bit of it myself, the offer of tea, the right sort, not mucked up by heavy cream or that watered-down 1 percent, is like filling the pockets with the language coins in James Joyce’s writings. Throughout the day, you reach for a coin, the right word, the right phrase to meet the daily battles. Having tea gives you the same assurances. It is its own daily poetry.
Mention an emotion — for the Irish, for the English, for any serious tea drinker — and you will see the pot being readied and hear the call, “Let’s have some tea.”
The world’s problems, your own woes, money worries, Mrs. Murphy’s loss, the daughter’s left her boyfriend, the arthritis is bad, there’s a new priest in town, wasn’t Siobhan so happy? These are in the drinking of the tea. Life’s poetry.
So Olive must have her tea. She really wouldn’t be Irish without it.

The writer is a retired newspaperman who can be reached via ahgunther@hotmail.com

On a Sunday morning when I had finished my own 6 o’clock coffee and was headed over the mountain to downtown Nyack, N.Y., I saw this fellow and his dog, the mtan maybe 60, the collie 5-6. Both had left their pick-up on Clausland Mt. Road and were bent for one of the trails in this park area, once an artillery range for the World War I National Guard deliberately named Camp Bluefields since it wasn’t then PC to say Camp Blauvelt, after the Dutch-German hamlet where it was located.
The fellow looked awfully happy, serene even, and his dog caught the rhythm. You saw it in their synchronized walk. The man had a container of java in his hand. You could tell he and the faithful companion, or maybe it was the collie and his faithful companion, were in for a quiet, contemplative Sunday morning respite, away from the week’s rigors and worries. Didn’t take more than a glance to see their story. Calmed me, too.
Arriving in Nyack, I parked the car and got my own second helping of coffee at the Broadway shop and then headed to the observation pier built in Memorial Park to peer at the two new bridges being built across the Hudson River. It was a respite for me, but I was not alone. Any park has its regulars, and they were there again on this weekend morning — the older couple in their sedan looking at the water; two fishermen; more men and dogs, some women and dogs, too; a police officer on a coffee break; a young skate-boarder; and a woman, perhaps 20, scanning a smart phone but taking long moments to gaze into the distance. Not sure if her romantic life was involved, though that seemed to be the energy.
So, short respites for maybe 20 people in just two locations over a few miles on a Sunday morning in one smallish American hamlet and nearby village. If this were an American symphony by Aaron Copland, it would be notes on the common man, common woman and the rhythm of the downtime, the respite.

The writer is a retired newspaperman who can be reached via ahgunther@hotmail.com

On a Sunday morning when I had finished my own 6 o’clock coffee and was headed over the mountain to downtown Nyack, N.Y., I saw this fellow and his dog, the man maybe 60, the collie 5-6. Both had left their pick-up on Clausland Mt. Road and were bent for one of the trails in this park area, once an artillery range for the World War I National Guard deliberately named Camp Bluefields since it wasn’t then PC to say Camp Blauvelt, after the Dutch-German hamlet where it was located.
The fellow looked awfully happy, serene even, and his dog caught the rhythm. You saw it in their synchronized walk. The man had a container of java in his hand. You could tell he and the faithful companion, or maybe it was the collie and his faithful companion, were in for a quiet, contemplative Sunday morning respite, away from the week’s rigors and worries. Didn’t take more than a glance to see their story. Calmed me, too.
Arriving in Nyack, I parked the car and got my own second helping of coffee at the Broadway shop and then headed to the observation pier built in Memorial Park to peer at the two new bridges being built across the Hudson River. It was a respite for me, but I was not alone. Any park has its regulars, and they were there again on this weekend morning — the older couple in their sedan looking at the water; two fishermen; more men and dogs, some women and dogs, too; a police officer on a coffee break; a young skate-boarder; and a woman, perhaps 20, scanning a smart phone but taking long moments to gaze into the distance. Not sure if her romantic life was involved, though that seemed to be the energy.
So, short respites for maybe 20 people in just two locations over a few miles on a Sunday morning in one smallish American hamlet and nearby village. If this were an American symphony by Aaron Copland, it would be notes on the common man, common woman and the rhythm of the downtime, the respite.

The writer is a retired newspaperman who can be reached via ahgunther@hotmail.com

Now retired, I wrote hundreds of newspaper editorials endorsing candidates — local, state, national, These days I often cast another in my mind to make an election choice. And so it is with the presidential contest.

HILLARY OUR ONLY CHOICE; TRUMP DANGER TO WORLD

If U.S. presidents could be chosen directly by the electorate after party nomination, not via the now-flawed, remote-from-the-people Electoral College, and in a process where only public funds are used for campaigning, then the issues, the candidate’s platform, might be clearly set forth free of special interest and the voters might better know their choice. The nation eventually must reform that process, but this year it again has to choose based on hope that beyond the typical, even tired, promises, there is a potential leader who will helm an America in trouble, yet one that still can chase its frontier. In the least, the country must be held intact.

The Founders knew from the start that the road would be rocky, that the grasp on “democracy” would always be tentative, but that inspired argument, leaders with vision and the innate desire for humankind to be free could save the day and keep the process going. That the nation would for so long chase a frontier — the West, then industrial, scientific, social progress — reinforced the firm belief that these United States of America were on to something big. That mission must continue, for America, for the leader of the free world.

Yet today, with a threatened middle class; with the “one percent” obscenely rich and not paying it forward; with almost a majority of minority children in poverty; with unequal educational opportunity; with little investment in what should be a Marshall Plan, both for the unfulfilled recovery of the near-depression of 2008 and the deficit caused by the loss of jobs to other countries; with a national government seemingly unable to serve; and a people so absent of hope that some of them believe a one-liner huckster with a dubious foundation could be the leader of a restored reich — empire — the stakes are about as high as they can get in a presidential election.

Donald Trump, a businessman draped in many bankruptcies, contractor complaints and failed enterprise, a reality TV star who appeals to emotion, not reason, is offering his greatest P.T. Barnum scheme — convincing a hurting electorate that he is their rescuer. He offers no plan, hiding beyond one-liners such as “Make America Great Again,” and his nation would be male, white, well-armed, defending a wall against immigrants whom he blames for admitted economic ill. Adolf Hitler told hurting Germans that Jews were to blame for their country’s post-World War I collapse; now we have a modern-day fuhrer — leader — who targets other scapegoats.

The thought that Trump could hold the nuclear button in his hand is frightening. This is a man who plans by instinct, not reasoning, who is highly susceptible to “advisers” and toadies. Almost all his one-liner “solutions” would prove unconstitutional, and Trump would be in legal challenge from day one, hoping, of course, that he could pack the Supreme Court, perhaps a modern-day version of the set-up burning of the Reichstag that allowed Hitler to rule as dictator.

Donald Trump, who began his presidential quest as a lark and who never expected to ride the crest of a populist wave to the nomination, is a danger to the nation, to the world. He capitalizes on legitimate job loss, economic fear, a failed immigration policy and obviously stalled, out-of-touch government. But like Hitler, his reich would not be for all. Trump would not continue the Founders’ path but would instead take us down a dark path into a hell. He must not win the presidency.

Hillary Clinton, the first female presidential candidate in a nation still with frontier, probably wants the office first, and then she will worry about solutions later. But she is no dangerous non-thinker like Donald Trump. At worse, she would continue Democratic centrist policies, which were successful in her husband Bill’s administration though not the most complete for a changing, challenged America. At best, she might reinvigorate the national will.

The albatross about her neck includes distrust connected with Whitewater, improper use of an email server as secretary of state and ties to the same special-interest Wall Street that, after nearly destroying the economy in 2008 has profited from taxpayer-reconstructed ash and worker suffering while middle-class backs ail from more arthritis. Clinton is not free from special interests, and her policy solutions seem as wonkish, as dense, as the failed health-care proposal she offered in the 1990s.

A revolution appears ahead for America, hopefully non-violent, but sea change anyway unless the middle class is reenergized, unless there is hope for our children, our grandchildren, unless leaders realize domestic neglect is also terrorism. Where are the great funds for that battle?

The next president may well not be the one we need, but she must be the one who holds the United States intact until that new Washington, that new Lincoln, that new Franklin Roosevelt appears. Donald Trump would undermine our democracy; Hillary Clinton would preserve it. She must win.

The writer is a retired newspaperman who can be reached at ahgunther@hotmail.com This essay may be reproduced.